Rockpool to close

Author: Pat Nourse
Photography: Will Horner

Rockpool is closing. For real this time. Sort
of. Outgrown and overshadowed by the runaway success of its Bar
& Grill siblings, the restaurant, which chef and co-owner Neil
Perry opened on its original site in The Rocks in 1989, closes its
doors on Saturday 30 July. It will reopen as Eleven Bridge on
Monday 8 August.

So why the change? Perry says a lot of it comes down to the simple
fact of the name - diners mistaking Rockpool for Rockpool Bar & Grill still turn up at the
Bridge Street premises in their droves, despite the fact that
Rockpool is the older establishment by decades. "It's been the
subject of almost every management meeting we have down there," he
says. "How do we stop people from going to the wrong
restaurant?"

A closure of the restaurant for kitchen maintenance scheduled for
the end of next month prompted the discussion between Perry and
head chef Phil Wood: what else needed changing at Rockpool? The
answer was everything and nothing.

"We said 'there's an opportunity here to completely relaunch the
restaurant, and get completely out from under the shadow of
Rockpool Bar & Grill'. We got to talking about that and decided
to change the name. We're changing the food but not the focus on
quality or ingredients. We want to move away from the smaller,
fussier courses that have many layers to them."

Perry says it's about opening the sort of restaurant that he, as a
diner in 2017, is more interested in visiting. "I just don't feel
like putting in the time for a lot of this sort of dining. I can't
remember a single dish that I ate at El Bulli, but I'll never
forget the guinea fowl with a lobe of foie gras that was carved
tableside at Joël Robuchon once in Paris. I think of some of the
stuff we used to do in the '90s and early 2000s before we started
down the tasting-menu path and I feel like perhaps it's food I
believe in more."

Rockpool has moved away from its fine-dining roots before. In
2007, a year after the opening of Rockpool Bar & Grill on
Hunter Street, Perry flirted with going all-seafood at the
flagship, rebranding the restaurant Rockpool (Fish), but it didn't
take, and in 2008 it reverted to flying the Rockpool colours once
again. Moving Rockpool to its current Bridge Street incarnation in
2013, Perry set the dial firmly to fancy, with set menus at lunch
and a dégustation at dinner, but latterly he offered a four-course
option at dinner and à la carte service at lunch.

While Eleven Bridge's food will be different, the dégustations
dropped entirely in favour of à la carte menus, much of the package
will stay the same. Perry says the décor and cellar don't need to
change, and key staff such as chef Wood, sommelier Sebastian
Crowther, GM Jeremy Courmadias and manager Silvio Brentan will
remain in place. Some signatures, old and new, will also stay on,
he adds, the date tart and chicken wings with kombu butter among
them.

The price point will be similar to that at Rockpool Bar &
Grill. "We're not getting rid of the tablecloths and trying to have
a casual restaurant where you pop in for a glass of wine and a
plate of ham," Perry says. "It's not a junior Rockpool Bar &
Grill." The change to à la carte, he says, will free the kitchen up
to do a different kind of food. "I think of it not as fine dining
but as a great dining restaurant."

If the restaurant Perry is describing sounds a lot like Rockpool
Bar & Grill, Perry says Eleven Bridge will have another layer
of flavour. "If I could say anything, I'd say it was like a more
modern version of what we were doing at Rockpool in 1995." (For the
record, Rockpool in 1995 was fêted for its Chinese-style pressed
duck and mango, and roast pigeon with yam and ginger pasta.)

Closing the doors on a restaurant he has headed for 27 years is
not a decision Perry has made lightly. "It's the restaurant where I
defined myself, I suppose, and I'm sitting here now as the head of
the Rockpool Group because of it. It's with a heavy heart that
we've made the decision, but as we've talked about it, we've become
more and more comfortable with the idea that we're going in the
right direction. It'll always have the spirit of Rockpool."